W. Rhys Roberts translation

XXIII

THE figures,
which are termed polyptota--accumulations, and
variations, and climaxes--are excellent weapons of public oratory, as you
are aware, and contribute to elegance and to every form of sublimity and
passion. Again, how greatly do changes of cases, tenses, persons,
numbers, genders, diversify and enliven exposition. 2. Where the use of
numbers is concerned, I would point out that style is not adorned only or
chiefly by those words which are, as far as their forms go, in the singular
but in meaning are, when examined, found to be plural: as in the lines

A countless crowd forthright

Far-ranged along the beaches were clamouring "Thunny in sight!"

The fact is more worthy of observation that in certain cases the use of the
plural (for the singular) falls with still more imposing effect and impresses
us by the very sense of multitude which the number conveys. 3. Such are
the words of Oedipus in Sophocles:

The whole enumeration can be summed up in a single proper name--on
the one side Oedipus, on the other Jocasta. None the less, the expansion of
the number into the plural helps to pluralise the misfortunes as well. There
is a similar instance of multiplication in the line:--

Forth Hectors and Sarpedons marching came,

and in that passage of Plato concerning the Athenians which we have
quoted elsewhere. 4. 'For no Pelopes, nor Cadmi, nor Aegypti and Danai,
nor the rest of the crowd of born foreigners dwell with us, but ours is the
land of pure Greeks, free from foreign admixture,' etc.(Menexenus 245d, at Perseus). For naturally a theme seems more imposing to the ear when
proper names are thus added, one upon the other, in troops. But this must
only be done in cases in which the subject admits of amplification or
redundancy or exaggeration or passion--one or more of these--since we
all know that a richly caparisoned style is extremely pretentious.

XXIV

Further (to take the converse case) particulars which are combined
from the plural into the singular are sometimes most elevated in
appearance. 'Thereafter,' says Demosthenes, 'all Peloponnesus was at
variance' (On the Crown, 18, at Perseus).
'And when Phrynichus had brought out a play
entitled the Capture of Miletus, the whole theatre burst into tears
(Histories 6.21, at Perseus).
For the compression of the number from multiplicity
into unity gives more fully the feeling of a single body. 2. In both cases the
explanation of the elegance of expression is, I think, the same. Where the
words are singular, to make them plural is the mark of unlooked-for
passion; and where they are plural, the rounding of a number of things into
a fine-sounding singular is surprising owing to the converse change.

XXV

If you introduce things which are past as present and now taking
place, you will make your story no longer a narration but an actuality.
Xenophon furnishes an illustration. 'A man,' says he, 'has fallen under
Cyrus' horse, and being trampled strikes the horse with his sword in the
belly. He rears and unseats Cyrus, who falls (Xenophon, Cyropaideia 7.1.37, at Perseus).' This
construction is specially characteristic of Thucydides.

XXVI

In like manner the interchange of persons produces a vivid
impression, and often makes the hearer feel that he is moving in the midst
of perils:--

2. So also Herodotus: 'From the city of Elephantine thou shalt sail
upwards, and then shalt come to a level plain; and after crossing this tract,
thou shalt embark upon another vessel and sail for two days, and then
shalt thou come to a great city whose name is Meroe (Herodotus, Histories 2. 29)' Do
you observe, my friend, how he leads you in imagination through the
region and makes you see what you hear? All such cases of direct personal
address place the hearer on the very scene of action. 3. So it is when you
seem to be speaking, not to all and sundry, but to a single individual:--

You will make your hearer more excited and more attentive, and full of
active participation, if you keep him on the alert by words addressed to
himself.

XXVII

There is further the case in which a writer, when relating
something about a person, suddenly breaks off and converts himself into
that selfsame person. This species of figure is a kind of outburst of passion:

The poet assigns the task of narration, as is fit, to himself, but the abrupt
threat he suddenly, with no note of warning, attributes to the angered
chief. He would have been frigid had he inserted the words, 'Hector said
so and so.' As it is, the swift transition of the narrative has outstripped the
swift transitions of the narrator. 2. Accordingly this figure should be used
by preference when a sharp crisis does not suffer the writer to tarry, but
constrains him to pass at once from one person to another. An example
will be found in Hecataeus: 'Ceyx treated the matter gravely, and
straightway bade the descendants of Heracles depart; for I am not able to
succour you. In order, therefore, that ye may not perish yourselves and
injure me, get you gone to some other country.' 3. Demosthenes in dealing
with Aristogeiton has, somewhat differently, employed this variation of
person to betoken the quick play of emotion. 'And will none of you,' he
asks, 'be found to be stirred by loathing or even by anger at the violent
deeds of this vile and shameless fellow, who--you whose licence of
speech, most abandoned of men, is not confined by barriers nor by doors,
which might perchance be opened!(Perseus, Against Aristogiton 1, 27)' With the sense thus
incomplete, he suddenly breaks off and in his anger almost tears asunder a
single expression into two persons,--'he who, O thou most abandoned!'
Thus, although he has turned aside his address and seems to have left
Aristogeiton, yet through passion he directs it upon him with far greater
force. 4. Similarly with the words of Penelope:--

Herald, with what behest art thou come from the suitor-band?

To give to the maids of Odysseus the godlike their command

To forsake their labours, and yonder for them the banquet to lay?

I would that of all their wooing this were the latest day,

That this were the end of your banquets, your uttermost revelling-hour,